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Donald Trump calls Obama 'founder of ISIS'

Donald Trump on Wednesday repeatedly called President Barack Obama the "founder" of ISIS and labeled Hillary Clinton the "co-founder after which Clinton used his comments to say they show he is not fit to be president.

At a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Trump also said that ISIS "honors" Obama -- who the GOP nominee referred to as "Barack Hussein Obama."

After lamenting the "mistake" the US made by going to war in Iraq -- a conflict he repeatedly says that he opposed, despite evidence to the contrary -- Trump then criticized Obama's attempts to "clean up."

"Normally you want to clean up; he made a bigger mess out of it. He made such a mess. And then you had Hillary with Libya, so sad," Trump said.

"In fact, in many respects, you know they honor president Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is the founder of ISIS. He's the founder of ISIS, OK? He's the founder. He founded ISIS."

He then said that the "co-founder" of ISIS was Clinton.

Clinton campaign adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday accused Trump of "echoing the talks of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin."

"This is another example of Donald Trump trash-talking the United States," Sullivan said in a statement. "It goes without saying that this is a false claim from a presidential candidate with an aversion to the truth and an unprecedented lack of knowledge."

In an interview and campaign event in Florida on Thursday, Trump doubled down on his comments.

"Oh boy, is ISIS hoping for her," Trump said during an appearance before home builders in Miami Beach, portraying Clinton as lazy. "ISIS will hand her the most valuable player award. Her only competition is Barack Obama."

"He was the founder of ISIS, absolutely," Trump said of Obama earlier on CNBC. "The way he removed our troops -- you shouldn't have gone in. I was against the war in Iraq. Totally against it."

"That mistake was made. It was a horrible mistake -- one of the worst mistakes in the history of our country. We destabilized the Middle East and we've been paying the price for it for years. He was the founder -- absolutely, the founder. In fact, in sports they have awards, he gets the most valuable player award. Him and Hillary. I mean she gets it, too. I gave them co-founder if you really looked at the speech."

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CNN